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CHAPTER 1
THE JUDGMENT OF HEAVEN ON A COUNTRY
Scottish-born Thomas Ewing, the first of several Thomas Ewings of America, settled in Greenwich, New Jersey, just before the Revolutionary War. Although Ewing's ancestry was traceable to Cadet Finley Colquhoun, an Orangeman allied with William of Orange in 1690 at the Battle of the Boyne, a century later during the American Revolutionary War Thomas's son, George Ewing, distinguished himself at Brandywine as a common soldier leading a section of artillery. George mustered out of the Continental army a dirt-poor captain who sold his inheritance to make ends meet. Destitute, like many new Americans the soldiers found fortune and a life in the West — the West at that time being western Virginia. George Ewing moved his family to a dirt farm in West Liberty, although some of his relatives complained that he "read too much" to become a good farmer. In 1787 the Founding Fathers were crafting the Constitution, with its slavery compromises prompting delegate George Mason to predict that the institution in America was a "slow poison," which would in time bring the "judgment of heaven on a country" where great sins would be punished with "national calamities." Two years later, a second Thomas Ewing in Finley Colquhoun's line was born. In 1792 George Ewing moved on, taking his young family further west, to Lancaster in central Ohio. This is where the family's meandering ended.
Lancaster at the time was not much more than a fortified stockade to deter marauding Indian bands. In politics George Ewing embraced federalism. Like the politics of the time, factionalism was taken seriously and could be virulent. When Aaron Burr happened to visit Lancaster in 1805, the young Thomas Ewing saw George Ewing being uncharacteristically rude to the former vice president. Only after the stranger left did the boy learn Burr's role in the dueling death of Alexander Hamilton.
By day Thomas Ewing labored on his father's farm and taught himself to read. Indeed he read books so rapidly that the family suspected some sort of genius within him. He was among the first American college graduates west of the Alleghenies. In 1816 Thomas was admitted to the Bar after studying with Philemon Beecher. When "Pa" Beecher went to Congress in 1818, Thomas Ewing began a renowned legal career. He was first a local prosecutor before building his civil practice in real estate law. While lawyers helped the less fortunate through pro bono cases, his important efforts were reserved for cases involving men of business. In January 1828 Thomas Ewing was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A patient man, he approached all things methodically. In 1819 he had to find a way to bridge the chasm between his own Presbyterianism and the Roman Catholicism of Maria Boyle, the daughter of the local court clerk and the woman he wanted to marry. He tolerated Catholicism because she demanded it of him. In return she bore him seven children, over seventeen years, all in the big house at High and Main streets in Lancaster. Three of his children became strong Catholics like Maria. Eleanor was known as Ellen to the family. Hugh, the second youngest boy, was a scrapper throughout his young life. Their daughter Maria eventually led a Catholic nunnery. Tom Jr. took on more of his father's deist ways. The oldest and the youngest were boys: Philemon and Charles, respectively. Furthermore, Thomas and Maria also raised three children of Ewing's sister Rachel, and a second cousin, Lewis Wolfley. For Thomas Ewing Sr. the phrase "devoted family man" was an understatement.
In addition Thomas Ewing took into his home nine-year-old Tecumseh Sherman, the sixth child of their neighbors Charles and Mary Sherman. The Shermans were also Revolutionary War refugees and had immigrated to Ohio after British Tories burned them out of colonial Connecticut. Charles Sherman had a small law practice that he was using to pay off debts from ill-timed efforts as a state tax collector in 1816. In Ohio in that era, Supreme Court justices were elected by the legislature, and Ewing had used his power there to get Sherman a position on the Ohio Supreme Court. The salary helped with the family debts, but then Charles Sherman died suddenly from a heart attack in 1829. Times had been hand-to-mouth even on Sherman's court salary. Now life became unbearable, and Mary Sherman had to divide her eleven children among relatives and friends. Extraordinarily loyal to his friends, Thomas Ewing took over Sherman's debts and volunteered to take Cump Sherman into his home. This was fine with Maria Ewing, except she insisted that no boy would live in the Ewing house without a proper first name, so the Christian name William was given to the redheaded boy.
Hugh Boyle Ewing was born on the last day of October 1826, and the attachment to the Catholic holiday All Saints Day colored much of his life. While All Hallows Eve had a pagan origin, Hugh Ewing always felt something very Catholic about his birthday. Much of his life he gave to the Catholic Church or at least its outward trappings. His religion formed patterns in his life, one of which was his dedicated journalizing of his every day. From him we learn much about the Ewing family, and that his earliest memories were religious in nature, a characteristic he shared with his older sister, Ellen, to whom he grew the closest. There was no Catholic church in Lancaster (the nearest was in Somerset, a half-day's ride away), thus Sunday mass was not always celebrated. When they stayed home the children and servants assembled in the big house, and Maria Ewing read aloud the mass prayers and led them in reciting the rosary. Catechism was rooted in reading Butler's Lives of the Saints
Although he was devout during his youth, Catholicism did not take root with Hugh until later in life. He was not the model son; this role was filled by Phil, the eldest. Hugh and Tom Ewing were three years apart and exceptionally normal, indeed ornery, in all respects. Hugh terrorized Tom and little Charley with whoppers about "hooper" snakes that could anatomically coil into a wheel and roll down hills, then skewer gullible younger brothers with their tail.
Smaller than his peers, Hugh was the "runt" of his crowd. The nickname infuriated him so much that he made up for it with an innate aggressiveness. If their gang needed a ringleader, Hugh was usually the one chosen. His first school was in a red frame building on Main Street run by Williamson Wright, a parson's son, a thoroughly unpopular and gloomy man. Wright's unusual ideas for punishment included forcing the boys to eat salty "bread pills." Hugh convinced the others that Wright's dreaded pills were dead flies wrapped in bread dough. Skipping school was another of his leadership decisions, and the episodes increased with the warmth of the season. Time was filled with swimming in the Hocking River, blackberry picking, building salt furnaces, collecting fossils from the coal mines in the region, hunting and fishing in nearby forests, and school if the boys could not think of reasons to skip.
The same year he was adopted into the family, Cump Sherman joined Phil and Ellen Ewing and Sherman's little brother John at the Lancaster Academy. When the Sherman children had been divided, John had gone to live with a nearby relative, but he still came to the school. The academy was a private school for prominent families. The Ewings, Shermans, and fellow barrister Henry Stanbery had founded the place in order to educate their children. Headmasters Mark and Matthew Howe taught Latin, French, and Greek along with reading, English, algebra, geometry, and surveying. Grandpa Boyle's orchard was next to the academy grounds and provided the headmaster with an "immense supply of apple switches" for disciplinary purposes, most of which were focused on John Sherman. While John's childhood reputation was primarily as a talker, he once angrily heaved an inkstand at the headmaster. Howe whipped the back of John Sherman's legs until he was exhausted. John Sherman later decided that being a politician was his future since his aptitude as a rebel had its limitations.
Hugh Ewing was another child prone to disciplinary problems. In 1836 a law student named E. B. Cone supplemented his income from Thomas Ewing by replacing the Howes as the headmaster at the family academy. At one point another student, Tom Hunter, knocked over a chair in such a manner it made Charley Ewing look responsible. Charley was an impish version of his larger-than-life father; although their facial features and heads were nearly identical, Charley was a small boy who would not cut a large figure when he grew to manhood. When Cone attempted to beat Charley, Hugh stepped in, Cone turned on Hugh, and they wrestled to the floor, out the door, and in each other's grip tumbled down the steps of the school into the dirt. Both were too stunned to continue and silently agreed their tussle had ended in a draw. Father Ewing had taught his sons to respect authority, and he demanded that Hugh apologize to Cone. Hugh refused. Charley was wrongfully accused, and no one should get a beating unless it was deserved. Thomas Ewing's anger increased, but Hugh held his position. Father Ewing also instilled in his sons a sense of justice, and he could hardly impose discipline in an already murky situation. Cone resigned over Ewing's inaction, and a new headmaster had to be hired. The younger brother of Lord Richard Lyons, the British minister to the United States, was hired. The Ewing boys liked Lyons and sensed their horizons were about to change. A second generation of young Ohioans was preparing for college.
As he was with issues of authority, Thomas Ewing Sr. was stern but indulgent and preferred that his boys learn from life's experiences. A favorite teaching method he employed for his children was travel. At age fourteen, while his father was away campaigning for William Henry Harrison, Hugh was given permission for an all-week thirty-mile trip to Columbus, where he and Tom could learn the fascinations of a library and marvel at the sights of a city, which included an insane asylum and the statehouse. On the return trip, Hugh bought some sweet wine, which eleven-year-old Tom Jr. ("Tinker") threatened to report to their father.
On another unaccompanied trip, this time to Greencastle, Hugh and Tinker picked up an ornery cousin, James G. Blaine, a future Republican Speaker of the House and presidential candidate. Even as a boy Blaine had an irrepressible instinct to bait Democrats. When he taunted some Democrats at a Van Buren rally in Greencastle, as the carriage rumbled through town, Hugh was afraid the local men would recognize their father's carriage. Hugh warned Blaine if he acted up on the return trip, there would be hell to pay. While returning through Greencastle, Blaine leaped off the buggy and tore down the Van Buren flag. When he struggled to get back into the carriage, Hugh kicked him out and yelled that gentlemen did not destroy other gentlemen's property, even political property. If the Loco Focos did not cut his heart out, Blaine could just walk to his Aunt Morgan's house in Campaign County. Blaine, with imaginary wild-eyed and knife-wielding Democrats on his heels, ran cross-country to Aunt Morgan's, where he surrendered his ragged flag, taken in political combat, and was tossed unceremoniously into the carriage for the remaining trip to Lancaster.
Thomas Ewing Sr.'s children grew up during Jacksonian Democracy, when the dominant parties were the Whigs and the Democrats. Andrew Jackson, the common man's president, was tall, narrow-shouldered, and he moved on storklike legs. He was anathema to the Ewings' Whig household, and the children were taught the difference between Whigs and Loco Focos from an early age. Henry Clay led the Whig party of that era and gave color to its nationalism and its role as successor to the Federalists, whose rockets had long since dimmed.
Thomas Ewing Sr. embraced Clay's ideology and the Whig Party as his political theology for the country's best future. In January 1831, the Ohio legislature sent Ewing to the U.S. Senate. At the time it was the legislatures that elected U.S. senators, and they did not hesitate to give senators "instruction" on how they felt about certain issues. When the Ohio legislature instructed Ewing to use his influence to scuttle the rechartering of the National Bank, however, Ewing not only disagreed with the theory that cheap money would benefit rural states such as Ohio, he disputed the legislators' authority to direct his vote. This sort of stubbornness became a family trait and was inherited by several of Ewing's sons. Jacksonian Democrats were quick to paint Ewing as an aristocrat who had speculated in Virginia land scrip before coming to the Senate and who had profited from that speculation by serving on the Committee on Revolutionary War Claims. Ewing did own Ohio scrip; he had taken scrip as legal fees in a cash-starved rural Ohio, where there was no national currency. Although no irregularities were proved, Jacksonians marked Ewing as a weakened foe, a flash in the pan, and a target in future elections.
At the end of his first term, amid all the turmoil, a spot in the next West Point class became available for Ewing to appoint. While his first impulse was to check with Phil Ewing, the eldest son, generally Thomas Ewing believed the sons of a wealthy family should not be educated at taxpayer expense. Phil Ewing wanted to be a priest, not a soldier, and the other Ewing sons were too young. Cump Sherman, however, had always loved the outdoor life. Not only did an army career seem a better choice for him, but Cump was extremely interested in the possibility. When the appointment was offered, he wrote his foster father, "I received your letter with my appointment yesterday with great satisfaction. I have informed my mother and [sister] Elizabeth of my appointment." The sixteen-year-old Sherman entered West Point in the summer of 1836, one of Thomas Ewing's last appointments.
Thomas Ewing Sr. concentrated on the politics necessary to be reappointed to the Senate, but even hiring a hall in Columbus with lavish spreads of food and drink did not persuade enough legislators to return him to the Senate. He was not hawkish enough against slavery. Ewing tried again in 1837 and 1838, but although he was a nationally known Whig, he failed again after some anti-Ewing gerrymandering in the state legislature eroded his support base. So Ewing returned home and reestablished his law practice, where he specialized in real estate matters and invested his fees in good property around Lancaster.
His practice did not keep him from national politics, however. In 1840 he actively campaigned for William Henry Harrison and became cabinet material when Harrison won the election. Henry Clay and Daniel Webster were the polar personalities of the party, and each tried to mold Harrison's cabinet in his own image. Clay wanted John Clayton of Delaware appointed to the Treasury because of Clayton's strong advocacy for a national bank. Webster proposed Ewing instead. Harrison favored a national bank, but he wanted to avoid taking on a divisive issue and to concentrate on building the party instead. Ewing's moderate personality and ability to work with all sections carried the day. Harrison chose Ewing as secretary of the Treasury. On March 4, 1841, a raw, cold, and cloudy day, Harrison rode bareheaded and without a coat in his inaugural parade, then spoke to a crowd of over fifty thousand for more than an hour. His voice hoarse, he caught a cold, lingered three weeks, and died of pneumonia. Vice president John Tyler assumed the presidency.
Tyler was a Virginia Democrat who termed the slave trade abominable and who authorized Ewing to create a plan to reestablish a national bank. The target of angry Southern senators, who disliked the idea of a national bank, Tyler then reversed himself and told them privately that he was considering vetoing the bank bill. When the second national banking act was enacted, Ewing and Webster urged Tyler to sign the bill. The bank was vital to the growth of the Whig Party in the North. Tyler shattered what was left of his cabinet on September 10, 1841, when he vetoed the banking bill. Ewing and Northern Whigs felt Tyler had pandered to slave interests. Secretary of War John Bell, secretary of the Navy George Badger, Attorney General John Crittenden, and Thomas Ewing resigned en masse. Ewing wrote Tyler that he was "deeply hurt," since the president had not consulted him — as secretary of the Treasury — on the veto message itself.
This resignation marked the passing of the first phase of Thomas Ewing Sr.'s national political era. He stayed on in Washington instead of returning to Lancaster, Ohio. His Washington law partnership included his son Phil. By 1842 Thomas Ewing's reputation as a man of influence had increased. The entire family came to Washington to live and work in a second home near the Capitol, which was an awe-inspiring location for young Tom Ewing and his brothers and sisters.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Thomas Ewing Jr.: Frontier Lawyer and Civil War General"
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Copyright © 2008 The Curators of the University of Missouri.
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